Vladimir Putin’s Encounters With Joe Biden’s Predecessors

Monthly bill CLINTON

President Clinton was Mr. Putin’s initial U.S. chief. The two achieved just months immediately after Mr. Putin was elected president and a lot less than a year in advance of Mr. Clinton left business. The Russian chief appeared aloof with Mr. Clinton, whom he clearly regarded to be a lame duck, said

James Collins,

U.S. ambassador at the time.

The leaders, who never ever received to speaking on a initial-name basis, agreed that rising nuclear powers these kinds of as North Korea were a expanding threat, but Mr. Clinton unsuccessful to persuade Mr. Putin to accept a U.S. antimissile process to counter it. At the press convention, Mr. Putin tersely called the U.S. strategy “a overcome which is even worse than the disorder.”

Mr. Clinton called Mr. Putin “a person who is a incredibly comfortable and pleasant spouse in negotiation.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

President Bush invested intensely in his connection with Mr. Putin, and around the program of his presidency he achieved or talked with Mr. Putin additional than any U.S. chief experienced spoken with a Kremlin counterpart in the past, said Tom Graham, former Russia adviser to Mr. Bush at the Countrywide Stability Council.

Immediately after their initial conference in the Slovenian funds of Ljubljana in 2001, a reporter questioned Mr. Bush if he reliable the Russian president.

“I appeared the guy in the eye,” Mr. Bush said. “I observed him to be incredibly simple and honest and we experienced a incredibly very good dialogue. I was capable to get a perception of his soul.”

Immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist assaults, Mr. Putin was the initial environment chief to call Mr. Bush to present condolences and declare himself an ally in the war on terrorism. The two presidents put in time at Mr. Bush’s 1,600-acre Texas ranch, exactly where Mr. Putin drove a pickup on a tour of the grounds with Mr. Bush riding shotgun. The adhering to year, Mr. Bush frequented Putin’s hometown around St. Petersburg.

The connection slackened with Mr. Putin’s disapproval of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, said Mr. Graham. Mr. Bush noticed later on that as climbing oil selling prices filled Russian government coffers, Mr. Putin depended a lot less on very good relations with the U.S.

In 2008, Russia slice off imports of American hen drumsticks acknowledged as “Bush legs,” which the administration of the initial President Bush sent to Russia as food items assist adhering to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Putin claimed the U.S. was sending inferior poultry to Russia, which President George W. Bush denied.

BARACK OBAMA

President Obama, whose early a long time were eaten with the economic crisis and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, tried using early on to increase relations with Russia. An early diplomatic blunder overshadowed the connection in March 2009, when then-Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton

introduced Russian International Minister Sergei Lavrov with a red button with the English phrase “reset” created on it, symbolizing Mr. Obama’s desire to commence anew. But the Russian phrase on the button was translated erroneously, studying in its place “overload,” an mistake Mr. Lavrov observed in entrance of television cameras.

That summertime, Mr. Obama frequented Moscow. With Mr. Putin then serving as primary minister whilst his protégé

Dmitry Medvedev

served as president, Mr. Obama endured a lecture from Mr. Putin about what he perceived as America’s shortcomings less than the Bush administration and the defective intelligence about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. In accordance to 1 person in the place, U.S. delegates grew tense as Mr. Putin’s lecture stretched to approximately an hour whilst Mr. Obama quietly listened. The only interruption came when Mr. Lavrov corrected Mr. Obama’s interpreter on a translation, irritating the U.S. president.

Relations deteriorated from there. When Mr. Obama appointed his chief Russia adviser, Michael McFaul, as ambassador to Russia, Mr. McFaul was harassed and followed by Russian condition television crews who accused him of doing work as the economic backer and crucial organizer of the anti-Putin protest movement.

DONALD TRUMP

In July 2017, President Trump achieved Mr. Putin for the initial time with out an official be aware taker, and quite a few administration officials were never ever briefed on the discussion. Telling aides that he wanted to cut down the likelihood of leaks, Mr. Trump authorized only then-Secretary of State

Rex Tillerson

to be present at the session and experienced him just take notes, they said.

Mr. Putin put in approximately twenty minutes lecturing Mr. Trump and Mr. Tillerson in a scarcely audible tone about the specific heritage of Russia’s hyperlinks to Ukraine dating back to eleventh century Kievan Rus, a medieval political federation found in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and component of Russia, according to another person formally briefed on the conference.

Mr. Putin urged Mr. Trump to understand that Ukraine is Russian territory. Mr. Putin, all the whilst, manufactured practically no eye get hold of all over his speech, according to this person.

A year later on, all through a joint press convention in Helsinki, Mr. Putin instructed Russia was amenable to enabling U.S. officials to query Russians charged with interfering in the 2016 election if Russian officials could interrogate U.S. citizens with unspecified crimes. The proposal took Mr. Trump by shock, people today common with the matter said. Mr. Trump called it an “incredible present.” Three times later on the White Property walked Mr. Trump’s statement back, saying Mr. Trump disagreed with the proposal “made in sincerity by President Putin.”

The U.S. president also appeared to just take the phrase of Mr. Putin, a former KGB officer, around that of his very own intelligence equipment, on no matter if Russia experienced interfered in the 2016 election to assist Mr. Trump.

“I have great self-assurance in my intelligence people today but I will notify you that President Putin was extremely powerful and potent in his denial currently,” the U.S. president said.

Publish to Vivian Salama at [email protected] and Alan Cullison at [email protected]